Here is Newsletter number 2. Thanks for the contributions, and I would welcome more.

Galloway Woodturners Newsletter May 2020

Vote by ‘ comment’ or by email to buwert@tiscali.co.uk

Good luck everyone. Try and vote tonight, and I will give the result at 9pm, as usual, or tomorrow if I think some voters are having trouble getting their votes in on time.

Entry 2 – Senior

Entry 3 – Senior Entry 4 – Senior

   Entry 5 – Senior Entry 5 – Senior Entry 5 – Senior Entry 5 – Senior

Entry 8 – Senior  Entry 8 – Senior

Entry 10 – NOvice Entry 10 – Novice Entry 10 – Novice

Hi folks, I hope you are all well and not run out of wood yet. I was recently at Jake’s 2nd shed, and he at least should be ok for a few months yet. 

There are a few entries for Tuesday’s competition, and there is still time to submit your entry, so let’s see what you have for us.

I am also putting together the next newsletter and am open to any article you want to submit. So if you are missing ‘Wood of the Month, or Show and Tell’ then here is your chance to vent your inner Clerk Kent ( … Superman).

It is also a while since we had a tour of anyone’s workshop, so if you take your mobile phone and use the video camera, a video of under two minutes would be great. It is surprising how much you can record in two minutes.

Thanks everyone, and look forward to hearing from you.

Rolf

Thanks to everyone who entered and voted for last months competition, especially Raymond and Stephen who were joint winners of the Novice, and to Ken who won the Senior. 

May’s competition is ‘Something Blue’ and I look forward to seeing what folks come up with. Interpret it how you like, with dye, paint, resin, inlays or a mix of wood and some other material?

Remember that the more people who enter the greater the victory, as the winner of two (or even one) entries is lesser than the winner of ten entries. Your scores will all add up at the end of the year so enter every month if you can. More entries please from the Novice group please, it is always nice to see a Novice produce excellent work which challenges the Seniors.

Same as last month, make you item, take two photographs if you can and send them to me, or upload them to the club Media folder and then on the 12th May  ‘Club Night’ we will all see them at 8pm when we have our coffee break, and try and vote before 9pm and I will give the result (even if it is just provisional) at 9pm.

Good luck.

Rolf

There are ten entries. Entry Number 4 and 5 are the novice, so please reply to this with your choice of 

1,2,3,  6,7,8, 9 or 10 for the seniors

4 or 5 for the junior

So all you need to do is give the two numbers and we will do the rest.

Thank you very much to everyone who submitted and entry and thank you all for voting.

(if you have any problems then send me an email with your vote)

NO MEETING ON TUESDAY (no surprise there) but the competition will go on, so if you haven’t made your entry yet then you have until Tuesday to get it done and the photographs sent to Rolf, Mick, or the web site and then let’s vote on them on Tuesday evening 8pm while we are having out (home) coffee break.

Each month I do the ‘Notices’ but in the current situation I have not done one for April, instead I thought I would try a Newsletter. Never having done one before it will we a bit rough and ready, hopefully it will get better over the next couple of issues. Feel free to contribute something, or volunteer to do it.

Newsletter Galloway Woodturners April 2020

I have heard that Axminster are offering a series of free live internet demonstrations featuring Colwin Way. The demonstrations are set to run every day this week beginning on Monday at 4pm.

Colwin’s schedule will be as follows:

Monday

Colwin will take a piece of burr oak and cast it with resin, this is purely a tutorial on casting with the intention that on Friday we turn the piece cast on Monday into a small bowl. Colwin will explain how to make the mould, cut the timber, mix the resin and add pigment and explain about pressure pots.

Tuesday

Making wooden apples and pears, this will involve jam chucking and polishing techniques.

Wednesday

Hollow form day, the project will be a leaning garlic jar inspired by French sculptor Thierry Martenon. It will have a textured outside surface and a sanded flat base. This will feature the Woodcut hollowing system.

Thursday

Back to a smaller project for this and an offset pendant, this uses several types of jaws both bought and home made to create the “off set”.

Friday

Turning the cast burr oak bowl we prepped on Monday, again several holding techniques here plus reversing the bowl to finish.

To access the demonstrations you need to point your web browser at the following page:

Colwin says that he would like lots of questions ….so fire away!

where there are several really good videos to inspire us at home.

(Thanks to Carl Burns for letting us know about this)

Hello folks,

for a little while we have to suspend our regular meetings so the club is going to come to you instead! 

The club will send out a regular newsletter by email to all members and keep you up to date with whats going on with other club members and where possible include news from further afield. If you know a member who doesn’t have email then why not give them a ring and have a chat, most woodturners don’t bite!

The newsletter will, hopefully, include:

• A handy hint or tip from members or from further afield, for example a hint on the best way to sharpen a skew for opening paint tins….that’ll definitely get at least one email!!
• A photograph (or several) showing “whats on the lathe” so you can see what other members are making.

So you can see that there is plenty of opportunity for you to participate, you don’t need to write volumes or produce photos suitable for use on a magazine cover. If you have a mobile phone you can take photos and send them through. If you don’t know how then just call your grandkids and they will explain how, we all like being patronised by teenagers!

We have also begun speaking to the professional turners who have demonstrated at the club in the past and have been given a very warm reception, so we can expect some hints, tips and photographs from them as we progress.

The club competition is still on, please photograph your entries and send them through. Entries will be put onto the website and we will arrange a voting system on the website to allow you to vote for your favourites.

Please remember that the club is not a building, a date on a calendar or a lathe. The club is the members and the shared interest we all have.

So to get things going here is a starting point (please switch on your images in this email or you wont be able to see the photos!! ):

BWT HINT/TIP

For those of us who use Carbide tools (no, I’m not the antichrist) and for those of us who use scrapers I have noticed a tendency for people not to realise that they have the tool at the wrong angle. When I do beginners sessions with these tools I have noticed that folks don’t always realise that the tool is pointing up ….until things go horribly wrong (loud bang, lots of swearing).

Interestingly this seems to be a bigger issue for taller people, or at least that’s what I have noticed. So in order to overcome this I came up with two things:

1. Take a simple plastic bubble level (you can get them on eBay) and stick a magnet on to the bottom of it with super glue. You can then attach this to the shaft of the tool, the bubble should be near you when using the tool, if it goes to the other end of the level then things are going to become unpleasant. 

2.

1. Once you have done this then you remember to use it with a simple ABC.
   A = anchor (the tool to the rest)
   B= Bubble, get it where it should be
   C= cut (or in this case scrape)

Carl Burns

Just like the fairytale Sleeping Beauty it is now time for Galloway Woodturners to go to sleep, not for a hundred years, but possibly for a hundred days, depending on how many times the wicked witch of Covid-19 comes back.

The workshop is ‘out of bounds’ to everyone. It is secure, and I will go and ‘mothball’ it soon (not by growing an impenetrable wall of thorns and briars)

Fear not, I will not awaken you all with a kiss, but a boring old email as soon as I possibly can.

The club will continue to live in us, the members, in our individual workshops, and in Facebook and this web site.